Education: Early Years

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for securing this debate and introducing it with such passion and perception. I want to interpret her intentions for the debate slightly differently and discuss in more detail something that she touched upon—early education in developing countries. In doing so I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF UK and a patron of Women and Children First. I want to talk about education in developing countries because many of the issues outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, apply to children all over the world. But for children and parents in developing countries, life is so much more complex, and education can have such an enormous impact. That education must begin early, and it must be funded.

Many children in these developing countries live daily with hunger, disease, conflict, rape and torture. Some have seen their families killed or imprisoned, or their families have simply disappeared. Education, especially for girls, brings hope and possibilities. However, 67 million children do not have the opportunity to go to school, even to primary school.

The ambitious target set for the millennium goals which the UN developed in 2000 is that they should be achieved by 2015. The targets include the eradication of poverty and hunger; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality and improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and, of course, universal primary education. I suggest that all these goals need to be underpinned by education—although I am not, of course, saying that education can do it all.

UNICEF’s annual report for 2011 emphasises the right of all children to survive and grow to realise their full potential. One branch of UNICEF’s work in deprived populations focuses on education by building schools, providing clean water and toilets, training teachers and supplying textbooks and stationery. In 2011, UNICEF UK gave £4.2 million to help children to go to school, many of them for the first time. The programme Girl Effect points out that when a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. An extra year of primary school boosts a girl’s eventual wages by 10% to 20%. Yet one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school. Of the world's 130 million out-of-school young people, 70% are girls. One girl in seven in developing countries marries before she is 15, and a quarter become mothers before they are 18. Girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die in childbirth, and 75% of 15 to 19 year-olds living with HIV in Africa are girls. Girls who marry early report a high incidence of domestic violence.

There is a proven relationship between better infant health and higher levels of schooling among mothers when girls and women have an income. They reinvest 90% of their income in their families as compared to 30% to 40% for a man. A report commissioned by DfID on girls’ education in Africa points out that girls’ education is a critical development issue not only for girls themselves but for the wider well-being of society. Without education, girls cannot realise their social, political and economic rights.

There have been many interventions on getting girls into school and retaining them in education and, of course, particular local circumstances define the type of intervention that might work best. Successful projects include improving the overall education system in a particular country, targeting interventions, political commitment at a national and local level and community-based interventions which encourage parents to support education for their daughters. For there can be cultural barriers in families which do not encourage the education of girls. Yet girls’ education is essential to the success of a country in achieving education and development for all. It sets up a spiral of hope rather than despair.

Development is not just about economics. Education from an early age, especially for girls, enables development. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 has had enormous influence in focusing the right to education for girls and for all. The platform for action at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing addressed the needs and rights of girls. Much has happened to improve educational opportunities for young people and for girls in developing countries. However, a UNICEF survey showed that, while a few children did not want to go to school, some had to stop school so that they could work. Lack of money is an issue and the need to help at home still affects many children.

DfID has supported education programmes in the developing world and long may that continue. This is not about what we get for a fiscal return. We all have a humanitarian duty to support the rights of children worldwide. While, of course, I appreciate the importance of early years education in the UK—there is still much to be done—I thought that it was important to draw your Lordships’ attention again to children who have fewer opportunities and less support. I do not expect the Minister to respond to these concerns. I am sure that he is concerned but it would be too much to expect him to take on yet another brief. I am content to have made the case for the importance of early years education in developing countries.